Court rules against 42 churches trying to leave UMC
A court has rejected a lawsuit by 42 congregations in Alabama and Florida who were trying to leave the United Methodist Church but believed that the disaffiliation process was unfair.
A group of congregations had recently filed suit against the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church over how it was implementing the denomination’s disaffiliation process.
In a ruling issued last week, the Montgomery County Circuit Court concluded that, as a secular court, it was not within its jurisdiction to determine the fairness of the disaffiliation process.
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“The Court is without jurisdiction to rule on such issues because the relief sought by Plaintiffs would require the Court to interpret a provision of the Book of Discipline intertwined with church doctrine,” stated the ruling.
In a statement released Monday, the Alabama-West Florida Conference explained that the Court believed the ruling was consistent with “principles enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and long standing rulings of law by the United States Supreme Court and Supreme Court of Alabama.”
“We continue to pray for all involved and look forward to continuing our missional work of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” stated the conference.
Additionally, the conference explained that the litigation held no bearing on the special session they held on Sunday, in which the regional body approved the disaffiliation votes of eight congregations.
Christ Methodist Church in Mobile, one of the eight churches whose disaffiliation was approved at the Sunday special session, reportedly has around 5,000 members.
At a 2019 special session of the General Conference, the UMC added paragraph 2553 to the Book of Discipline, which created a process for churches to leave the denomination due to the debate over LGBT issues.
Thousands of churches across the United States have successfully disaffiliated from the UMC via paragraph 2553, the provisions of which are scheduled to expire by the end of this year.
The congregations sued the conference on Halloween in Montgomery County Circuit Court, arguing that the regional body was delaying the process so that they could not leave by the deadline.
“After laying out the plan by which Plaintiffs could disaffiliate with their property and invoking Plaintiffs’ reliance on that plan, Defendants have now revoked that plan and are attempting to prevent their disaffiliation, exercising leverage over Plaintiffs by holding their church buildings and property hostage,” read the lawsuit.
Over the past few decades, the UMC has been embroiled in a divisive debate over whether to change its Book of Discipline to allow for the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of noncelibate homosexual clergy.
Although efforts to amend the rules have always been voted down at the General Conference, many liberal leaders within the denomination have refused to follow or enforce the standards.
In response to the ongoing debate and refusal to follow rules, thousands of mostly conservative congregations in the United States have voted to leave the mainline Protestant denomination.
According to numbers compiled by UM News that were accessed on Wednesday morning, more than 6,900 congregations have left the denomination since 2019, with nearly 5,000 leaving thus far this year.
